The City of Alpena was an overnight passenger steamer operated by the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co., whisking Detroiters away to cities around Michigan and Ohio in an era before automobiles were commonplace.

Success and increased demand for travel to Michigan's lumber and mining towns led to larger and faster passenger steamers, including the City of Alpena and her sister, the City of Mackinac. These vessels, like the rest of the D&C Navigation fleet, were designed by revered naval architect Frank E. Kirby.

The City of Alpena was launched March 13, 1893, at the Detroit Dry Dock Co. in Wyandotte, Mich., as Hull No. 114. The 266-foot paddlewheel steamer featured coal-fired boilers and a vertical-beam engine pumping out 2,400 horsepower.

She was enrolled at Detroit on June 24, 1893, and began making runs between Detroit and Port Huron, Harbor Beach, Alpena, Cheboygan and Mackinac Island, Mich., as well as Toledo, Ohio. The City of Alpena could carry up to 400 passengers, who would stay overnight in her many staterooms. She also carried cargo, which was crucial in an era when there weren't highways or adequate roads to get to towns across the state.

In 1912, she was renamed the City of Alpena II, falling in line with D&C's naming convention for similar ships, such as the City of Cleveland III and City of Detroit III (https://historicdetroit.org/buildings/city-of-detroit-iii.

With newer and larger passenger ships satisfying D&C's needs, the City of Alpena II was sold on Dec. 22, 1921, to the Graham & Morton Transportation Co. of Chicago and renamed the City of Saugatuck. Graham & Morton merged with its competitor the Goodrich Transit Co. of Chicago in 1925.

That company went bust in 1933, and the City of Saugatuck wound up in the hands of creditors. From 1933 to 1935, she sat idle in Benton Harbor until being sold at a marshal's sale on Dec. 16, 1935, to the Roen Steamship Co. of Sturgeon Bay, Wis. She was then towed to Wisconsin, where she languished for four years until her passenger cabins were stripped in 1939, and she was converted into a pulpwood barge and renamed the Leona.

From there, she was sold July 13, 1945, to the Northern Paper Mills Co. of Green Bay, Wis., and renamed the Normil a year later. She then spent a brief period carrying petroleum products for Marathon Petroleum.

She was finally scrapped in 1957.